While traveling around Paris earlier this year, I was drawn to the glowing shades of city’s horizon and landscapes of color. The vibrant blues of the sky over Rue de Rivoli, and the hazy purples radiating over the city from Montmartre, became my inspiration for designing the Ombre Collection.
Outside the Louvre early evening in January
Ombre is a color shading effect from light to dark and I wanted to create a collection of rugs that reflected this gradation of color. The beauty of creating an ombre rug is that the effect does not overwhelm a room setting. Its design is a highlight of color that creates a mild stripe across the width of the rug. It plays much more of a color story than a surface pattern story.
Admiring the cast of purple across the city’s skyline from Montmartre
I planned to develop this concept as a tufted rug collection. The flexibility of our tufting machine in Fall River would allow for easy yarn/color mixing to help create the ombre effect. I pulled additional colors to round out the pallet from my Color Trend boards for 2010.
First Ombre rug to be created on our Fall River tufting machine
As you can see from the photo above, the pile is a bit shaggy when first tufted. I wanted to create a low profile rug, so I had the cut pile surface sheared very short and clean. This finishing process completed the look. Once the ends of the yarn we sheared, a stippled effect was revealed and each yarn end appeared as a single point of color, similar to pointillism. This effect and the gradation of color made the perfect ombre!
The first round of samples developed for Ombre – eventually introducing lighter shades
The final collection is made up of 8 colors (some of which are not picture here), each representing a color trend I’ve defined for 2010.
For the last couple of weeks I have had the pleasure of working with photographer, Kent Dayton, on capturing new images for Merida Home to help tell our incredible story!
The Team (Left to Right) – Christina / Carrie / Kent / Whitney / Maegan / Heather (Front-Center)
Carrie (Merida’s Marketing Manager) and I planned for 2 separate shoots. The first was at our Fall River facility where product swatch and studio photos were taken. Kent also explored our manufacturing facility and started capturing the people and development behind our products.
The second shoot was located at a beautiful home on New Hampshire’s Lake Sunapee. This shoot was meant to help express how the rugs are used in an actual room setting. I thought this was a perfect location for Merida Home. The house used to be an old camp, and has now been updated to have a very sophisticated presence with a fun, comfortable feel. Below are some behind the scenes photos of setting up each shot and the final images Kent captured at Lake Sunapee.
BEFORE
Viewing some of the first shots on Kent’s laptop of the living room with our Kona rug
AFTER
Final shot of Kona Black Walnut
I ended up using a bunch of throw pillows and blankets to help tie in the rugs with their surroundings. The wood floor in the living room had been painted a deep indigo blue, and walls a warm orange. I thought it would be best to enhance the complimentary colors and add persimmon toned pillows to the couch. With all the hues combined the rug popped and completed the setting!
BEFORE
Whitney and Christina arranging the children’s room to feature our Kids Viewpoint rug
AFTER
Final room shot with Fair Isle Capri
We really wanted to keep each photo clean and focused, so for the kids room we eliminated any clutter and simplified the elements. The dark blue throw was a bit too heavy and didn’t work well with all the lighter tones in the room. It wasn’t really allowing the rug to shine. We replaced it with a cream waffle weave throw. This brought in a new texture and softened the color palette.The final shot shows the light pale yellow walls and sea glass tones of blue in the furniture. This allowed the garden of color from the Viewpoint rug to glow. We threw in accents of toys and pink slippers, but kept the overall feel clean and inviting with the focus being on the rug.
BEFORE
Kent snapping images of our Madagascar Glacier rug while Carrie oversees
AFTER
Final shot of a Madagascar Glacier runner
This was a fun shot to set up. The painted wood floors of solid blue to checked yellow draw your eye through the composition. Even though there are a lot of elements to look at in the shot, the rug still is the main feature. It’s texture is so dimensional against all the other smooth surfaces in the room.
I’m really glad we were able to use this beautiful home to showcase Merida’s rugs. It was a very successful day and we were able to get 14 different room shots. We are in the process of finalizing the photos now and I’m excited for them to be posted on our website soon!
